Best Buy, you FAIL
Dec7
Dec 24th, 2008 9:48AM – received BestBuy password reset request in my e-mail inbox.
Dec 24th, 2008 10:03AM – received BestBuy purchase confirmation in my e-mail inbox for $156.74.
The problem? I was asleep and didn’t make this order! Sometime between 9:48AM and 10:03AM a Thomas Ng in Beaverton purchased a Sony Cybershot 8.1 MP camera over the phone and had it shipped to a Gabrielle Ng in Portland. I’m assuming that the Thomas in Beaverton waited a while for their password reset request to come to his e-mail inbox, and when it didn’t, he called up BestBuy for a phone order. So a BestBuy representative handled the phone order and changed MY account information and overwrote it with THEIR account information. The billing address, shipping address and even the credit card information was changed out this morning.
Okay, so if a customer calls and tries to place an order over the phone and also says that all of their billing information was different, wouldn’t the customer service guy get a little suspicious and deny the order?
Lucky for me, the order was billed to their Master Card, so I didn’t loose any money. I wonder how many other people this has happened to? Now that I have their CC information, what prevents me from racking up a bunch of purchases under their name? This is a huge security hole.
Best Buy, you FAIL.
Cost of text messaging vs E-mail.
Sep0
So I just got a text messaging plan after having a cell phone for the last 8 years. Being nerdy, I calculated the cost of texting vs just using internet e-mail. Let’s assume that there is no protocol overhead for e-mailing or texting and that what you only send is pure text.
My Comcast bill is approximately $55/month. Comcast recently announced that one can use a total aggregate bandwidth of 250GB per month before reaching their monthly limit. At this rate, the price per character is $2.05 x 10^-10 (that’s $2.05 billionth of a dollar per *character*… a very very small number.)
The math:
($55.00 month / 250GB) * (1GB / 2^30 bytes) = $0.000000000205 / byte.
(1 byte = one 8-bit ASCII character – e.g. A-Z, 0-9 and punctuation)
On the other hand, my text messaging service costs $5.00 / month. You get 400 *total* text messages, with 140 characters each. Lets assume that every text message that you send and receive is 140 characters long… even though the average text message is much shorter. At this rate, the price per character is $0.0000893.
The math:
($5.00 month / 400 messages) * (1 message / 140 bytes) = $0.0000893 / byte.
(1 byte = one 8-bit ASCII character – e.g. A-Z, 0-9 and punctuation)
So, if Comcast charges the same amount as your phone carrier for the same amount of service, it would cost you $23,971,286 per month.
The math:
($0.0000893 / byte) * (1 byte / [1/2^30] GB) * 250GB = $23,971,286.
Yes … almost $24 MILLION dollars a month.
Its in a dream.
Aug0
I’ve been actively dreaming over the past week. I don’t recall having so many dreams in the timespan of a week and I find it especially odd because I really haven’t gotten enough sleep lately. I woke up this morning thinking “huh!?” as a recalled the dream that I just had. It made no sense, and appeared to be a collection of thoughts and images that I collected over the past week.
I apparently went down to Eugene to visit Chantelle, Natasha, Troy and Katie. The dream started out in an apartment which I never saw before. There was a large sink in the kitchen and behind it was a large dining room table. The walls were yellow and it was a big place. I knew needed to go get my bike tuned, but I don’t think I had my bike with me at that point.
I walked outside and noticed that the apartment unit that I was just in is being supported by a large I-beam in a structure that was almost cantilever like. I was walking North. There was construction to the right, and a chain linked fence had been erected to keep people out. I kept walking until I reached the north end of campus and had no idea where the bike shop was, but I was pushing my road bike – it just appeared. Somehow I found the bike shop. I dropped off my bike… but then asked how long would it take to tune up. The guy said 1 day. I told him that I needed the bike back for a race that night. “I can’t finish it in time,” he said. I told him OK and just only gave him the front tire to true up. I walked my bike… and somehow i was also riding it —with only the back tire attached — on campus. The campus became OSU on the way back. I had somehow ended up around Cauthorn and Sackett Hall while trying to get back to the apartment. Half way back, I ended up calling the bike shop. “I needed my tire NOW,” I said. The guy told me it would be two days until the tire was ready. I was pissed off at him. I went back to the shop and grabbed my tire and ran. Next thing I knew i was outside of the apartment. I approached the door and noticed that there was a hole in the wall. I went inside and everyone was picking at the hole. I woke up.
The dream made no sense.
Yeah.
Mar0
I spent the evening calling the companies who sent me junk mail. Some were understanding and took care of the issue immediately. Others, didn’t care to help. The worst ones are the credit card companies who send you those blank “Convenience Checks” …
Another set of numbers to add to my blacklist
Jan1
These numbers has been calling me lately:
- 541-737-9441
- 541-737-9456
The person (or machine) on the other end never says a thing. I reported these numbers to the FCC. If this is you… then FUCK OFF!